


Barba Whump Wars

by notmyyacht



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Multi, Sickfic, Violence, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 20:38:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3704293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notmyyacht/pseuds/notmyyacht
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My side of the whump war battles with pyrrhicvic. </p><p>Basically, a collection of ficlets where horrible things happen to Barba. Tags will be updated with each new ficlet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sick

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Barba gets seriously sick and hides it from the SVU gang.

It started out as a cold. At least, that’s what Barba thought it was. He didn’t take time off. He couldn’t. His next three weeks were booked with cases; he couldn’t  _afford_  to take any time off.

While at his office, he tried to take care of himself as best he could with cold medicines, substituting -to his irritation- tea for coffee, got the salad instead of the burrito for lunch, orange juice, and, of course, plenty of tissues.

No one noticed for the first few days. He quickly got worse.

It wasn’t until a Monday when he walked into the SVU bullpen, his eyes watering, his face slightly swollen, his nose red and congested, that everyone realized that Barba was sick.

“Maybe you should go home,” Benson advised him. Barba shook his head.

“Like hell,” he tried to sound confident with his voice all nasally, “no one else will take your case.”

Rollins kept her eyes glued to her feet in her struggle not to giggle at how ridiculous Barba sounded. Barba tried to ignore her. He paced for a moment, staying in conversation about the case. He ignored the pounding in his head that had started earlier that morning.

“Look, man, go home. You’ll just get the rest of us sick by staying here,” Amaro insisted. Barba shot him a glare. Damnit, this headache wasn’t going away. Just the stress of the job mixing with this light cold. Nothing serious. Nothing for the team to worry about or show concern over.

When business was all finished and Barba was finally putting on his coat to leave, a wave of dizziness washed over him.

His case felt like a bag of bricks in his hand. He watched it fall to the floor. Someone was saying his name, asking if he was alright.

“I don’t… feel well. I think I should go ho…” Barba collapsed to the floor. The pounding in his head just wouldn’t stop. Benson was leaning over him, barking orders …something about an ambulance.

Benson placed a cool hand on his forehead. She said something about him burning up. Barba couldn’t pay attention anymore. The pounding was distracting him from everything else.

 –

Barba frowned down at his chicken noodle soup.

“What, not to your liking?” Benson smiled.

“You don’t have to be here. I can take care of myself. Besides, you could catch something from me and give it to Noah.” Barba’s voice still sounded congested, but his head felt a lot clearer.

“If that were the case, I probably would have already caught it. I’m just glad your fever is finally down,” she replied, placing a fresh cup of green tea on his bedside table. Barba scowled at it.

Barba hated being stuck at home, but the DA insisted he not step into his office until Barba was one hundred percent again. Barba reluctantly agreed.

Although he wouldn’t admit it, he liked that Benson was coming regularly to check up him. Perhaps being sick wasn’t so bad after all.


	2. A Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Barba loses a fight.

Rafael Barba isn’t one to get into fistfights. He preferred battles he could win with his mouth and his voice and his intelligence. This wasn’t one of those fights.

He slumped to the ground at his assailant’s feet. This had not gone the way he wanted it to at all. He should have known picking a fight against a man twice his size and weight in muscle was a bad idea. But the bastard wouldn’t leave that poor teenage girl alone. He couldn’t stay silent like the fifteen or so others in the cafe, who were averting their eyes.

Barba didn’t stand a chance as soon as they were out in the alley behind the cafe. He got one punch in. His knuckles wouldn’t thank him for it later. But that was all he got before the brute started beating on him.

Barba clutched his stomach in one hand and tried to grab hold of the brute’s ankle with the other. The bastard pulled his leg away.

“What, you want some more?”

Barba figured that his ribs were damaged from that last kick to his side.  _God_ , it hurt. He could taste blood in his mouth. Was his nose broken?

The brute grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt collar and pulled him to his feet, only to roughly shove him up against the wall. Barba’s head painfully hit the brick and he suddenly felt dizzy. He felt another punch to his cheek. A knee shoved itself into his hip, causing Barba buckle over with a groan.

This time the bastard let him crumple to the ground. The brute’s obnoxious chuckle echoed in the empty alleyway and Barba squeezed his eyes closed, nausea starting to wash over him.

He let his mind wander to when he was a kid and Eddie would protect him from bullies like this creep. Barba isn’t a kid anymore and he’s on his own.

 _Strange_ , he thought,  _in a way, it’s as if nothing’s changed._

The brute called him something demeaning, then, at last, Barba could hear his footsteps getting softer and softer. The bastard was gone and Barba was alone.

He lay there for what felt like hours. He  _had_  to get up though.

Barba managed to prop himself up against the wall.

“Shit.” His head swam as he fumbled through his pockets, looking for his cell phone. He sighed in relief as he pulled it out of his inner breast pocket, with it completely still intact.

He blinked a few times to help focus his vision as he scrolled through his contacts. Damnit, he felt so tired. He held the phone up to his ear, waiting for the person on the other end to answer.

He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t directly calling an ambulance.

“Hello?” he heard on the other end.

Barba almost laughed at the sound of their voice.

“Hey detective…” was all he could manage at once.

“Barba? Is that you?”

“Yeah, look… I’ve gotten myself into a situation. Could you come get me?”

“Why? What happened?”

“I think I need to go to the hospital.” Barba couldn’t believe how casual his own voice sounded. The voice on the other side was desperately babbling off a stream of questions about what happened and if he was okay. The nausea had somewhat subsided, but dammit, he was still  _so_  tired. Barba gave the address.

“You got that, Carisi?” he asked, his voice starting to fail him.  _So tired._

“Barba, there’s an ambulance on its way! I’m on my…”

Barba didn’t hear the rest of it.

 —

He woke up several hours later in a much more comfortable position. The heart monitor to his side beeped regularly and Barba knew he was still alive. His head was buzzing but it didn’t hurt.

There was something in his hand, something soft and smooth loosely wrapped around his hand.

 _“Barba, there’s an ambulance on its way! I’m on my…”_  that voice echoed in Barba’s head as he looked down at the sleeping detective at his side. Carisi’s head rested on the space beside Barba’s hip as he breathed softly in and out.

Barba’s eyes rested on Carisi’s hand gently draped over his. He always had a feeling the detective had a thing for him. Strange how it wasn’t until he heard the man’s voice on the other side of his phone did he realize…

Carisi stirred. His eyes blinked open as he raised his head. A big smile spread across his face. Barba wouldn’t admit it, but it was the best sight he’d seen in a while. He also would chock up the butterflies in his chest to the pain meds.

“Glad to see you’re awake,” said Carisi, his hand slowly starting to retract. Barba squeezed his hand around it to stop him.

“Remind me to never get into a fistfight ever again.”


	3. Stairs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Barba trips down some stairs and sprains his ankle and has no one to help him at home.

Barba thought the stairs in his grandmother’s building were horrible, but perhaps it’s just stairs in general that are evil.

It was a late night at the office and after nodding off twice, Barba finally decided to allow himself to call it a night.

He rubbed his eyes as he entered his apartment building. He hadn’t slept much that whole week and quite frankly it was ridiculous he stayed at the office so late on a Friday night. He yawned as he trudged over to the elevator. Too many flights of stairs for this exhausted DA.

At least, so he hoped.

He groaned as he read the “Out of Order” sign taped to the elevator doors. Stairs it was.

He could handle it, it wasn’t the first time he had to climb the five flights to get to his apartment. They really needed to do something so the elevator wouldn’t keep breaking down as often as it did.

Barba was halfway up the fourth flight when his foot missed a step. All he could think was  _SHIT_ before he went down.

It luckily wasn’t a particularly long flight. He rolled completely over twice before he came to a stop at the bottom. At one point he was sure he heard a  _pop!_

Barba lay there on his back for a moment, taking in what just happened. He blinked a few times and proceeded to try and sit up. His left ankle ached like hell.

He cursed under his breath as he propped himself up against the wall. He took a deep breath and gently pulled his pant leg up. He brushed his fingers against the top of his sock in an attempt to push it down and inspect the damage, but the moment the tip of his index finger touched his skin, he pulled back with a hiss.

Gritting his teeth, he groaned in pain and swore again.

 _Just got to call an ambulance_ , he thought, fishing into his jacket pocket for his phone. His fingers wrapped around the rectangular device and he pulled it out with a sigh of relief.

Barba’s relief vanished and the small smile building in the corner of his mouth faded in an instant.

The phone screen was completely shattered.

_Oh God._


	4. A Bullet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Barba gets shot by an angry suspect.

Barba would later hear that Mark Parsons wasn’t aiming for him, or any singular person in particular. He would later hear that he just wanted to gun down the SVU squad before they could dig further into his history of sexual assault against girlfriends who were too terrified to come forward in the past.

The ADA would later hear all of this, for now he thought he was going to die right there in front of the courthouse. He couldn’t even really remember when the bullet hit him. Only that one moment he was walking and chatting with the SVU detectives Benson, Carisi, and Rollins. Then there was some screaming and the next minute he was on the ground, Benson was pillowing his head with her coat.

“Barba! Barba, stay with me!” she said, her voice relatively calm, but Barba could hear the subtle shakiness at the edges of her words. He spotted Rollins pacing off to the side on her phone -calling an ambulance? Carisi was on his right, hand pressed against Barba’s shoulder.

“Councilor, don’t worry, we’re gonna get you to the hospital,” said Carisi. He looked so damn worried. Why was he so damn worried? Barba knitted his brow. What was there to worry about if he was going to the hospital?

Barba head sank back against Benson’s coat and his vision darkened.

“Barba!” Benson shook him enough to get his attention.

“Don’t need to yell, Liv,” Barba managed to mumble before he felt unconsciousness beckoned to  him again.

“Shit, he’s losing too much blood,” he heard Carisi say before passing out.

 

When he finally awoke several hours later, Barba wasn’t ready to open his eyes and his shoulder was fucking killing him. He imagined his favorite gray suit he was wearing earlier was now soaked in blood. Brilliant.

“Do you think it was my fault?” spoke a soft voice. Sounded like Carisi. “I mean, I was the one who insisted on going after Parsons before we had substantial evidence.”

“Except you were right.” Ah, Benson was in the room too. “He was the rapist we were looking for. You made a good call.” Barba could picture the pride swelling in Carisi’s chest at that the smile probably lighting his face up. A child guessing the correct answer.

He could hear footsteps approach him as Carisi said, “Still, if it went down a different way…”

“I wouldn’t be needing more pain meds?” Barba chimed in, finally allowing himself to open his eyes. He blinked a few times, allowing his vision to adjust to the hospital room.

Benson was standing off to the side, hands in her coat pockets. Carisi was on Barba’s right once again, though there didn’t seem to be any hint of pride in his posture. They both looked exhausted, but relieved. 


End file.
